By State Rep. Mitch Little
It’s a tense time to be in the Texas House. The first two weeks of the legislative session have certainly been eventful, if not productive.
To start, the House elected Speaker Dustin Burrows of Lubbock over the reform candidate, Rep. David. Cook of Mansfield; it was the first time in 50 years that the vote has gone more than one round of voting. The vote reflected a fractured Republican caucus, pulling in opposite directions of the uniparty establishment and much need reforms. You might think that the party would pull together after such a difficult vote and get to work for Republican voters, but, no, you would be wrong.
The first matter that came on for consideration by the House was H.R. 3, the housekeeping resolution. This housekeeping resolution had a couple of significant changes: It proposed to authorize the Speaker to retain litigation counsel to represent the body, any committee, any member, or any officer of the House—something not permitted by law. It also proposed to increase house office budgets for each of the members by $1,000 per month. Rather than bring the resolution to the floor for a vote, the Speaker announced that the Committee on House Administration had the ability to adjust the budgets as it saw fit without the need for any vote at all.
On the heels of this false start, the Rules package for the House rolled out as H.R. 4. While the Rules proposed to end the practice of Democrat committee chairs in the Texas House, the Speaker crafted a deal with the Democrats not only to promote them to at least 30 vice-chair positions over committees in the House, but also to give them a separate $4,000 per month budget to hire staff for each of those committees. When conservative Republican members rose to debate the matter and attempt to amend the rules, Rep. Jared Patterson of Frisco moved the previous question—a procedural device that would cut off all debate and amendments and force a vote on the Rules package. Democrats and Republican House leadership rammed the changes through without any further discussion.
Perhaps the most concerning change embedded in the Rules package is found at Rule 4, Section 6A, which provides that the Chair of each committee “shall arrange to ensure” that “measures or matters designated by the vice-chair are promptly scheduled for a public hearing under this rule.” What this means is that 30 Democrat vice-chairs will be able to control the flow of legislation in the Texas House with unlimited, theatrical hearings on lefty bills and deranged testimony designed to bog down the lawmaking process.
You may be rightly wondering why any Republican would vote for such an operating system. The simple answer is that it allows House leadership to control the flow of legislation through the process. Conservative bills will simply “run out of time” as a result of designed Democrat delays, but leadership-favored bills will sail through without incident. Sadly, it all revolves around retention of power and maintaining the delicate balance for a speaker ushered into power on the back of a nearly unanimous Democrat vote and a minority of Republican support. Cast your votes next primary season accordingly.
Rep. Mitch Little (R) serves in the Texas House of Representatives, District 65 in Denton County.
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